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2 Things A Startup Should do to Compete With Large Companies

This article is written by Jeremiah Uke, a Contributor Author at Startup Istanbul.

Eren Bali is an entrepreneur, CEO, and co-founder of Carbon Health, for 9 years and counting he has also served as a co-founder and CEO of Udemy, an online learning platform used all over the world, Eren was present as a speaker at the Etohum San Francisco 2017 conference, where he narrated his journey with his now global ed-tech startup.

One
thing that can reduce the lifespan of a startup is fear, fear of competition,
fear of working with the government, fear of not meeting targets, fear of
failure amongst other fears. Startups find it hard to compete with large
companies these days, and its not because they do not have the resources to,
Eren Bali, a successful entrepreneur who has had good experience of building
startups in industries dominated by large companies, believes there are 2
things a startup must do to be able to compete against the large companies,
they are:

1. Care:

According to Eren, “you have to care about things the large companies do not care about”, most large companies start losing touch with their customers, in healthcare, they lose touch with their patients, at startup level, they did care about them which led to their success, at a point they become an organisation and hierarchy steps in, which leads to loss of focus.

That genuine care for your users, you must also care about the service you provide and the manner at which you deliver that service or product. As an entrepreneur, you must care deeply about the problem you are about to solve and the solution you intend to provide, this sets you apart from other entrepreneurs and adds passion in your journey as an entrepreneur.

2. Go to the lengths other people would not go to

As
a startup, you have to constantly give %110 to be able to make this workout, going to lengths other people won’t, can mean a lot of things, it can mean sending your customers an email
weekly, it can also mean sending your users birthday text messages, paying more
attention to details, revamping your company culture and making some important
changes, it can also mean taking a closer look at your service to find out if
there can be better ways to deliver. Eren went the extra mile when he worked
two jobs to be able to support his startup Udemy, and now it is safe to say
that Udemy itself, is a large company.

As an entrepreneur, considering both of the above-mentioned factors would help your startup rise, Eren encourages young startups and entrepreneurs to experience failure, learn from mistakes made and continue to forge ahead.